Particle Physics Collaboration (PPC)

An event in the CMS detector

The Particle Physics Collaboration (PPC) group pursues the
completion the Standard Model of particle physics, a set of
theories which describe all known phenomena concerning the
electroweak and strong interactions, and explores
physics beyond the Standard Model. The group does this by
analyzing a large amount of data in high-energy proton-proton
collisions collected by the Compact Muon Solenoidal (CMS),
one of two multi-purpose particle detectors installed at interaction
points of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva,
Switzerland.

This group plays a leading role in the Compact Muon
Solenoidal (CMS) collaboration at the LHC, composed of 183
institutions from 38 countries, with 3000 scientists and engineers.
After 20 years of design and construction, the CMS detector, the
heaviest detector ever constructed for particles physics which
weighs 14,000 tons, started collecting proton-proton collision data
in October 2009.